On February 5, 2014, the EPA's National Center for Environmental Economics (NCEE) and the Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) announced (79 FR 6899 – 6900) that they had developed a draft “analytic blueprint” of materials on the technical merits and challenges of using economy-wide models to evaluate the social costs, benefits and economic impacts associated with the EPA's air regulations.

The EPA has requested that the SAB provide review of the EPA’s modeling and ability to measure full regulatory impacts and to make recommendations on the use of economy-wide modeling frameworks to characterize the social costs, benefits, and economic impacts of air regulations with the aim of improving benefit-cost and economic impact analyses used to inform decision-making at the agency. As a first step, the EPA has asked the SAB to provide feedback on its draft charge questions and analytic blueprint.